Tributes: 'Nanna' Liz Abrahams

Address by Trevor Manuel, MP at the memorial service for Liz Abrahams Paarl Town Hall

23 December 2008

Programme Director

Family of our late Comrade Nana

Comrades and friends

It is an exceptional honour for me to bring greetings here today on behalf of the ANC National Executive Committee (NEC), the government and on my own behalf. The honour is one that I do not take lightly because Nana was such an exceptional person, and an outstanding comrade. Very, very few of us would claim to have been in the ANC longer or known it better. Much of what we celebrate as our defining characteristics, including the Freedom Charter and the style of mass work, is the product of Nana?s generation. Nana, started work at the age of fourteen, so when the Freedom Charter was drawn up she had already been working for sixteen years and had been organising workers for most of that time.

None of our generation could ever point to when Nana became a member of the ANC - we found her in the movement. She epitomised all of the good of why we joined the ANC. There was no room in her life for a compartmentalisation of struggle into the pigeon holes of trade unions, community, or hard politics. The activist and organiser had to asses the risks of each. For her there was one indivisible struggle ? the single objective being the upliftment of the living standards of all.

If we look back on her life, the fundamental questions we must all ask ourselves is ?How much have we learnt? And to what extent will we try and emulate her example in what we do everyday??

When Nana became General Secretary of the Food and Canning Workers Union in 1955 at the tender age of 30, it is worth recalling, she had been working for 16 years and had been organising workers against the most brutal exploitation for most of that period. It is no surprise then that every time she rose to speak in parliament between 1995 and 2000, the only issues she spoke on were the rights of workers and with the same energy and enthusiasm with which she addressed workers issues on the factory floor almost 60 years earlier. All workers were included in her campaigns and energy, but she reserved a special place for the most vulnerable, rural workers in the canning industry and on the farms.

The moral of Nana?s leadership is one single, unbroken struggle. Small issues affecting workers were as important as the bigger matters that required the muscle of the entire union movement. The struggles of communities for housing and civic services were in every way as important as the titanic battle for the rights of women. The mass work in the eighties was in every way as important as the risks necessary to assist the MK cadres who returned to the country.

Through all of this there were characteristics so defining of her warmth and motherhood. She was patient with us - the rebellious youth. She had seen it all before but would never say anything to make any of us, regardless of the heat of our blood, feel inadequate. Her greatness allowed her to be exceedingly humble, yet without an iota of subservience. Her leadership was always by example rather than by lecturing or barking instructions. After all, her work as a union organiser took her to the smallest of rural towns where few others ventured because the boot of repression was most severe there. The strength of her comradeship was in never asking somebody to undertake a task, considered to be too menial or risky, that she would not herself be prepared to do.

In describing her early work with Comrades Ray Alexander and Oscar Mpetha she talks about discipline in respect of time and commitment to duty. She says of the present generation, in an uncharacteristic public criticism, ?That is what our people lack ? discipline and commitment. They don?t have that yet. You need that to make progress.? When you had the lives of the most vulnerable as your key responsibility - the continuous risk of banning, prison or even much worse - discipline and commitment were necessary weapons in your armoury. The concern that Nana expressed of us is that we appear to act as though that was only needed in the face of oppression. Perhaps she also implies that we act as though the struggle is now over and that is a very, very wrong assumption.

So let us pause to look back on the values that Nana lived ? the result of the way in which her experiences were shaped. I would like to draw out five lessons from her life and work:

* Non-racialism was such an essential part of the entire Food and Canning Workers Union experience. The union was compelled by law to register separate unions for coloured and African members. However, the day-to-day organising and the essence of all that they represented were non-racial in every sense of the word. Nana and Ray Alexander, Nana and Oscar Mpetha, Nana and Elizabeth Mofokeng, Nana and Frank Marquad, Nana and Jan Theron ? the list is endless but the message the same: non-racialism could never be some distant horizon. It has to be lived to be internalised.

* The workers had a right to be led by the best amongst us. The full time organisers of the Food and Canning Workers Union could expect to be paid what the workers they organised were paid. When workers got an increase, only then the organisers did. There was no space for social distance between the leaders and the led ? leadership was a privilege that was earned and re-earned. She says of trade unionism then and now,?One of our problems today is that people get too comfortable in their positions. Now that we have cars and houses we do not want what we did before. I am very angry that there are people in positions that could be of great value to the ANC, but because they became complacent, they are not prepared to make any sacrifices.?

* Honesty and integrity was at the very heart of the struggle ? unions had no rights. The right to representation had to be won, and even that did not produce the right of the union to the withdrawal of subs. Subs had to be collected after hours on payday and then every cent paid over to the union. There were tragic cases of organisers who had used some of the subs, in some instances temporarily because they were also poorly paid. The leadership of the Food and Canning Workers Union did not ever hesitate to have their own comrades arrested. If integrity about small amounts was so drilled into the minds of organisers, trusting them with other tasks and larger sums came automatically. Comrades of Nana?s generation and experience have been aghast at the reports of corruption and entitlement that so abound in our country today.

* Comradeship was defined by what happened after a disagreement. We would be completely na? to ever believe that through decades of struggle Nana never had disagreements ? whether on strategy or tactics, or in the aftermath of a raid or arrest, disagreements would arise. The key issue is how the disagreements are resolved, whether people retain their mutual respect for each other, whether all are bound by the decision reached, and whether at the conclusion of a disagreement people could still look each other in the eye, address each other as ?Comrade?, and know that the dependence on and respect for each other had not been compromised. We are not here bidding farewell to ?Saint Nana?, but look at her life and know the meaning of comradeship.

* Revolutions are acts of love. If anger or hatred replaces love, a revolution must fail. Pause, consider how Nana related to you, and know that her love and respect for you were intertwined. In describing the differences between trade unionism ?then and now?, Nana says, ?There was a certain respect and subservience amongst one another that is no longer there, based on my experiences. People say things about you without any consideration for your feelings. They don?t care.? Nana is warning against the departure of the love and respect that should inform our interactions.

These are five lessons I draw from Nana?s life. The lessons are there. The example belongs to all of us. We have to do everything in our power to live by it. I was quite taken aback recently when talking to some comrades not far from here. They were of the opinion that somebody in a local position of responsibility may have been involved in chemical warfare against the youth through the sale of tik. The question that I have been pondering since hearing that was,? What would Nana have done? How would she have approached the problem? Would I be wrong in assuming that she would have led the delegation to confront the individual and to ask him to step aside?? Would I be wrong in assuming that would have been her role? Would I be wrong in assuming that nobody would have needed to plead with Nana to take that leadership role? Would I be wrong in assuming that, at least in her memory, tasks such as this one would have to be locally led and acted upon?

I want to share with you a poem by the great Chilean poet, Pablo Neruda, translated into Afrikaans and with the gender fixed. It is entitled

So is my lewe - Pablo Neruda

My plig loop saam met my lied;

Ek is ek is nie: dit is my lot.

Sonder sorg oor die pyn van hulle wat ly

Bestaan ek nie; hulle is my pyn.

Sonder vir almal te staan kan ek nie bestaan nie,

Vir almal stemloos en verdruk.

Ek spruit uit die massas en ek sing vir hulle.

My posie is 'n lied en 'n straf.

Daar word gese: jy behoort aan die duisternis.

Miskien, miskien, maar ek loop na die lig.

Ek is die vrou van brood en vis.

Jy sal my nie vind tussen boeke nie

Maar tussen vroue en mans:

Hulle het my die oneindige geleer.

For those amongst us who could not share in Nana?s mother tongue, here it is in English:

So is my Life

My duty moves along with my song:

I am I am not: that is my destiny.

I exist not if I do not attend to the pain

Of those who suffer: they are my pains.

For I cannot be without existing for all,

For all who are silent and oppressed,

I come from the people and I sing for them

My poetry is song and punishment.

I am told: you belong to darkness.

Perhaps, perhaps, but I walk toward the light.

I am the man of bread and fish

And you will not find me among books

But with women and men:

They have taught me the infinite

The people have taught Nana the infinite and Nana leaves that wisdom to us - a durable legacy and an example that must be followed. We have no choice. Perhaps we should consider how we can live out the great gift of Nana?s life. Let?s start with drawing the appropriate lessons from the recent municipal by-elections. We must demonstrate that as in Nana?s life, the lessons of the stumbles in struggle become the stepping stones for the next battle. Ahead of us, a huge battle through which we must secure an election victory. Let us do that knowing that there are unresolved organisational matters that we shall fix thereafter. What holds us together as comrades is far greater than what separates us from others. Let that bond be our armour. Let us take on that battle as Nana would have.

Thank you.

Issued by: National Treasury

23 December 2008

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